President selects 50-member committee to amend constitution

The 50-people committee tasked with drafting the constitution was announced by interim President Adly Mansour Sunday. It includes only two Islamist figures, four women, and four Copts.

The Islamist figures are Bassam Zarqa, deputy head of the Salafi Nour Party, and Kamal al-Heblawy, a former Muslim Brotherhood member.

In February Zarqa resigned from his post as political adviser to then President Mohamed Morsi in solidarity with fellow Nour Party member Khaled Alam Eddin, whom Morsi had sacked. Heblawy on the other hand is an outspoken critic of the Brotherhood, who had left the group in 2012 to protest the nomination of Khairat al-Shater as its president.

The 50-people committee is expected to finalize amendments to the constitution in two months and present them to the president to be put up for referendum within 30 days. Under that timetable, Egypt will hold the referendum in November.

Three members represent Al-Azhar on the committee, including Shawqy Allam, its current grand mufti. The Church is also represented by three members.

Representing young people on the committee are Mohamed Abdel-Aziz and Mahmoud Badr, spokespeople and two of the five founder members of the Tamarod group, founded in late April to collect signatures calling for the removal of then President Mohamed Morsi.

Ahmed Eid and Amr Salah also represent Egypt’s youth, both members of the June 30 Front of the Federation of Revolution Youth.

Prominent writer Mohamed Selmawy and director Khaled Youssef represent the Egyptian unions of writers and artists respectively.

Youssef is vocal critic of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a leading figure in the campaign against the removal of Inas Abdel-Dayem, head of the Opera House, by Brotherhood figure and then Culture Minister Alaa Abdel-Aziz.

Representing the visual arts sector is Mohamed Abla, an artist who led the campaign against the seizure of land in Qursaya, an island used for agriculture in a prime location in Cairo, where Abla lives.

Sameh Ashour, Khairy Abdel Dayem, and Diaa Rashwan represent respectively the lawyers, doctors, and journalists syndicates, which they currently head.

Other members include representatives of Egypt’s national councils, whose members are generally appointed rather than elected.

The list also includes Mohamed Magd Eddin Barakat, who represents the Armed Forces.

Representing the “liberal current,” Al-Ahram reported, is Sayed al-Badawy, head of the Wafd Party, and Mohamed Aboul Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.

Representing leftist politics is Hussein Abdel Razek, deputy head of the Tagammu Party.

The list also includes public figures such as renowned heart surgeon Magdi Yaacoub, Sinai writer and blogger Mosaad Abu Fajr, political analyst Amr al-Shobaky, Al-Azhar University professor Saad el-Din al-Helali, and foreign minister under Hosni Mubarak and 2012 presidential candidate Amr Moussa.

Last week, a committee of 10 legal experts mandated to amend Egypt’s 2012 Constitution finished its work, making way for the formation of the 50-person committee that will produce a final revision of the document ahead of a referendum, to be held within the next three months

Some observers have criticized this process, saying that amendments should first go through a larger group of political representatives and be fine-tuned later by judicial figures, rather than the other way around.